“LET THEM TAKE IT”: Australian Swimmers’ Defiant Stand Forces World Aquatics to Permanently Bar Lia Thomas from Olympics
By Marcus Hale, Sports Investigations Editor Published October 29, 2025
SYDNEY — In a seismic victory for fairness in women’s sports, World Aquatics announced Tuesday the permanent expulsion of transgender swimmer Lia Thomas from all Olympic and elite competitions, capping a firestorm ignited by Australia’s top male swimmers. Following a viral confrontation dubbed the “Kyle Chalmers Incident,” elite Aussie swimmers—including Olympic gold medalist Kyle Chalmers and relay stars Zac Stubblety-Cook and Matthew Temple—declared they would forfeit their spots in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics rather than compete against Thomas in men’s qualifiers. “Let them take it,” Chalmers thundered in a packed Sydney press conference, echoing a rallying cry that’s galvanized the swimming world. “We’re scared to share a locker room with someone like that. He is not a man like us anymore.”
The bold stance, amplified by Riley Gaines’s endorsement on X—”Australian men just ended the debate”—drew thunderous applause from male swimmers globally. Caeleb Dressel tweeted: “Respect. Fairness wins.” Hours later, World Aquatics President Hubert Lam confirmed Thomas’s ban, citing “overwhelming athlete consensus” and new evidence of “irreversible male puberty advantages.” The decision, effective immediately, bars Thomas from the men’s category (where she competed pre-transition) and voids her 2022 NCAA records retroactively.
The Kyle Chalmers Incident: A Locker Room Line in the Sand
Tensions boiled over at the 2025 Singapore World Aquatics Championships last July, when Chalmers—100m freestyle silver medalist in Paris 2024—confronted Thomas during mixed-zone interviews. Thomas, 26, had petitioned to swim men’s events after CAS rejected her women’s appeal in June 2024. “I’m back where I belong,” Thomas said. Chalmers exploded: “You’re not taking our medals too. Locker room? No chance.”
The clip went supernova: 15 million views on X. Chalmers elaborated on Fox Sports Australia: “We’ve got families, wives, daughters watching. Sharing showers with a 6’4″ biological male? Hell no.” Teammates piled on. Stubblety-Cook: “I’d rather retire than race a cheat.” Temple: “Let them take the women’s medals—they won’t touch ours.”
By September, 20 Australian male swimmers signed a “No Thomas Pledge”, vowing boycott. Swimming Australia CEO Rob Stankovich backed them: “Mental health, fairness—non-negotiable.” The federation warned: “Lose our men, lose the podium.” Australia, with 21 medals in Paris, projected zero if Thomas swam men’s relays.
Global Echo: “LET THEM TAKE IT” Goes Viral
The mantra “LET THEM TAKE IT”—coined by Chalmers—exploded. #LetThemTakeIt hit 50 million impressions, with edits of Thomas’s NCAA wins overlaid on empty Aussie podiums. Gaines, tying fifth with Thomas in 2022, rallied: “Men said NO. Game over.”
U.S. stars joined: Dressel (“Locker rooms are sacred”), Hunter Armstrong (“Compete clean or don’t”). Michael Phelps: “Biology isn’t bigotry.” UPenn lawsuit plaintiffs—Paula Scanlan, Kylee Fields—cheered: “Vindication.”
Trans advocates cried foul. ACLU: “Transphobia triumphs.” Athlete Ally’s Danne Diamond: “Exclusion kills dreams.” Thomas, in a rare statement: “Hate won’t drown progress.”
World Aquatics Bows: Permanent Ban and Policy Overhaul
Facing global boycott threats—USA Swimming pledged “mirror action”—World Aquatics convened an emergency summit in Barcelona. Lam: “Athlete welfare trumps ideology.”
New rules:
- Permanent men’s ban for post-puberty trans women.
- “Open” category scrapped—no entries since 2023.
- Retroactive record purge: Thomas’s NCAA titles erased.
- Locker room protocols: Biological sex verification.
Thomas expelled indefinitely. Legal team: Appealing to IOC. But with Trump Title IX crackdown—$175M UPenn fine—momentum shifted.
IOC President Thomas Bach: “Science supports separation.”
Chalmers, post-announcement: “We swam for truth. Let them take the lies.”
As LA 2028 nears, swimming’s waters run clear. LET THEM TAKE IT? They won’t. Fair play prevails.
